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Neurosurgeon and award-winning author Dr. W. Lee Warren, MD delivers daily prescriptions from neuroscience, faith, and common sense on how to lead a healthier, better, happier life. You can’t change your life until you change your mind, and Dr. Warren will teach you the art of self brain surgery to get it done. His new book, Hope Is the First Dose, is available everywhere books are sold.
Good morning, my friend. Hey, I am so grateful to be with you today.
It is Mind Change Monday, and we're going to get after a little self-brain surgery
today, and this is a very special and exciting episode. Let me tell you why.
Four years ago, I read a book called All In by a writer named Mark Batterson.
Mark is a New York Times bestselling author.
He's the pastor of the National Community Church. He's a tremendous writer,
and I've read a bunch of his books.
And I can tell you without any doubt, All In was a book that completely changed my life.
It just radically altered my worldview.
The whole premise is you're one decision away from totally changing your life.
And I'm always telling you that you can't change your life until you change your mind.
And one of the things that we have to change our mind about is that what got
us here to this place with the frustrations and failures and stuckness and successes,
and everything that we've accomplished or not been able to accomplish,
or every place where we've had victory or not,
is because of decisions that we've made, because of disciplines and habits that we've formed.
And one of those relates to our spiritual lives. How committed are we to taking
God's Word seriously, to believing
what He says about the best way for humans to flourish and live is?
What's the level of commitment that we've had?
And I would just tell you that one of the things that keeps people stuck,
one of the things that keeps people from progressing in their lives is this
unwillingness to change their approach.
We talk about it all the time on this show. We have a sort of stuckness about
the way, the paradigm, the worldview, the way we think about things.
And we keep trying and trying and trying different things, but with the same
set of operational tools.
And we don't make new progress and then wonder why we don't make progress.
And we're frustrated that we don't break through. All in kind of shook that out for me.
All in said, hey, the reason you're stuck is because you haven't committed fully.
To the best plan, to God's plan for your life. You haven't fully committed to
the things that do work, the things that do produce human flourishing,
the things that do help you become healthier and feel better and be happier.
So four years ago, I started All In August here on the podcast.
And every year since then, this will be the fourth year, we've read the book
together, All In by Mark Batterson, and we've taken lessons from it and not
necessarily just studied the book, but taken the concept and said,
how can we go all in in our life?
How can we go all in in our marriage, in our spiritual life,
in our families, in our businesses, in our finances?
How can we go all in and see if what the neuroscience says is true,
if we really apply it, see if what this Bible says is true, if we really apply
it, see if we can smash them together to unlock this fusion potential energy
of a life that's crafted after best principles that your creator,
the great physician designed for you, and that the best practices in science
and psychology and philosophy and theology and everything looks at that says,
here's how humans can flourish.
What if we said, hey, I'm going to believe it. I'm going to go all in.
I'm beside myself today because we're almost at the end of July.
Later this week is August 1st, and we're going to start all in August for the fourth year in a row.
But this year, the unique differentiator is. We've got the man himself.
We've got Mark Batterson with us to go all in, to walk us through the book,
to have a conversation and be our champion as we start this process of all in August.
We're going to change our minds and we're going to change our lives.
And today for the first time on the podcast, we've got Mark Batterson,
New York Times bestselling writer, pastor,
thought leader, and the author of the most inspiring book I've ever read about
this process of going all in. Mark Batterson is here with us today.
We are going to get after it right now. Friend, we're back, and I am so excited.
I've been telling you for four years that we were going to eventually get Mark
Batterson on the show, and today is happening thanks to lots of prayer and Maggie
from the church and Brett from Waterbrook.
We've got Mark Batterson in the house. Welcome to the show, Mark.
Hey, Lee, the joy and privilege is all mine. What a joy to be on the podcast today.
That's exciting, and we are going to hear this. Our Our people are going to
hear this on the last day of July because we use your book, All In,
as our textbook for the month of August.
This will be the fourth year in a row, Mark, that this community has come around
to say, hey, we're going to go all in.
We're going to use Mark Batterson's text to guide us into that all in life with the Lord.
So with that being said, thank you for writing it. Thank you for being here.
And would you start us off with a prayer before we get going here?
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you for being every person listening
to this podcast. I like great.
That they would know that they are seen, heard, and loved by you.
That you would be God who knows every hair on their head.
You have our names tattooed on the palm of your hand.
And you're God who cares about the intimate details of our lives.
God, thank you that nothing is too big for you and nothing is too small.
Lord, I pray that we would rediscover and dismiss the other.
And just how lovely we are by you.
And I praise you in renew faith. We're in need for renewing.
And we trust you to guide this conversation.
And we trust the way that the Holy Spirit works in each and every one of us. In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen. Thank you so much, brother. Listen, I got to tell you,
I've read about six of your books, I think.
And All In landed in my life.
It was written in 2013 published in 2013 and that's the year that we lost our
son Mitch and Mitch died in the fall of 2013 and your book sat on a shelf for
a long time mark I Took me a long time to come back to reading and writing and
doing all those things that I always normally did and when I finally picked up all in and.
It was a challenge. It was hard for me to commit. I still had some big questions
about what I believed and whether I believed it.
And I was really struggling and angry and all those things that you go through
after you lose somebody.
And after I committed to that lifestyle and your pastoral guidance helped me
get there, it really made a difference in my life.
And that led to a few years later, this podcast and all these things and all
in August. And so I just wanted to tell you that story and thank you for that
and let you know that you have impacted millions of people, obviously,
with your work and your ministry.
But that book in particular, for my life, just really made a difference. So thank you.
Lee, thank you. And I should know that I had a wonderful prayer team from the
first book I wrote and our predominant
prayers were put these books in the right hands at the right time.
Because timing is so important that there
there are moments when you're ready to read something
and moments that you are and for me hearing
that lee i know that it's a answer to
prayer and just a joy thank you for letting me into your orbit and the community
of folks that you've been loving on and uh so very meaningful grateful thank
you and thanks for being here and i know you're a busy guy So we're going to
be real disciplined with our time here today.
And I want you to just guide us through this idea of what it looks like to go
all in with God and why that's so important.
And one of the things you said in the early part of the book,
you were quoting yourself from Circle Maker when you said what prayer was.
And you said prayer is the difference between the best you can do and the best God can do.
So maybe just go back in time to Circle Maker a little bit and set us up with what that's all about.
And that'll lead us into this idea of how we can go all in. Yeah. I think...
There's this little idea that Jesus says, seek first the kingdom of heaven,
and all these things will be added unto you.
And we get the C point wrong, don't we, Lee? Most of us, most of the time,
we want all these things added to us.
Then and only then, we'll seek God first. And in the meantime,
we'll seek him second, third, or tenth.
This little idea, don't seek opportunity, seek God, and opportunity will seek
you. And you can fill in that blank with a hundred other things.
Don't seek miracles, seek God, and miracles will seek you.
So the book was really about reprioritizing.
Is Jesus the Lord of your life?
For me, can I just share a defining moment?
When I was 19, I thought I was following Jesus, but the reality is I had invited
Jesus to follow me. It was more about God serving my purposes than me serving His.
At that point, Lee, I'm at the University of Chicago, and it's,
Lord, help me get an A on this test that I should have studied for more.
Or, Lord, help me get this free throw for your glory, of course.
It was more about God serving my purposes.
All in flits the script. Because I think a lot of people have an inverted relationship with God.
And I think the true adventure begins when you...
Fully trust and fully surrender and literally go all in. You don't have your bets anymore.
You just go all in. The time, talent, treasure, heart, soul,
mind, and strength, past, present, future.
You surrender it to the Lordship of Christ. And that's an interesting way to
begin a podcast, isn't it?
It really is. It's in your face a little bit, but I hope people hear the heart behind it.
They will. Well, and I think it's a fascinating story that you tell right at
the outset of the book about these missionaries that moved away from their homes
and they took their caskets with them.
Tell us about that level of commitment and what it would look like if we could
set ourselves up like that.
Yeah, I just yesterday I was with about 700 missionaries that were headed to
155 countries around the world.
And I am continually humbled. Come on, I will say this, there are easier places
to pass for a turd than Washington, D.C.
Yeah, especially in an election year.
So I'm not making light of the challenges of doing what I do here,
but I think missionaries are heroes.
But back in the day, instead of packing a suitcase, they would pack their belongings
into a coffin and ship them because they knew they were never coming home.
That metaphor, that idea, profoundly impacted me.
I can tell you exactly where I was when I heard it.
I was in a doctor of ministry class.
It would have been early 2000s.
And the professor told that story, and it rocked my world. And I couldn't help it.
Ask myself a question. Am I living with that kind of commitment, that kind of surrender?
That opening story just is a way of, it's reminding us that halfway is no way to live.
Sometimes you just gotta go all in. And can I flip the question back to you?
Because I did, I noticed in I Have Seen the End of You, you talked a little
bit about your family, but it sounds like you guys know too much about halfway,
that you're in all in family.
So I am I'm curious how you've applied that principle just in your life.
I hope it's okay for me to ask a question. Absolutely. I love it.
One of the things we talk about a lot on our show is principles of neuroscience.
And one of them that I came to understand from a neuroscience standpoint is
you can't do something new in your life.
You can't make your brain behave in a way that it hasn't before until you stop
doing something that you've done before. Like you can't, what got you here won't get you there.
And you actually said something like that in the book. I think you said,
if you want to start a new chapter, you have to end an old chapter.
But that's really that all-in idea. Like from a neuroscience standpoint,
it makes perfect sense. You've got to sever a synapse to create a new one.
And for me in my life and Lisa's life, my wife, we realized like you can't,
for example, after we lost our son, you're going to either be defined by that
experience or you're going to let God refine you through it.
And so we had to realize, okay, we're sad, we're broken, we're grieving,
we're hurting, but we still have a life to live.
And a way to honor our son is to find our feet and find our faith and know what's
true and then dive into it and make it matter.
Like you can't live a superficial life anymore. All the dross has been burned
away and it's been clarified.
Like we are here for a purpose and you got to get after it. Yeah,
when my wife got her first cancer diagnosis, all of a sudden...
Important things were really important, and unimportant things were really unimportant.
It's just, it has this clarifying effect that it forces you to reprioritize.
And my guess is most people listening to this podcast have their own unique experience with that.
That's right. That's right. Right. And you have to get to that place where you
say, man, my life is either meaningless, like the evolutionary biologists want
me to think it is. It's completely meaningless. It doesn't matter.
So just make yourself happy and pursue what feels good.
Or it really matters. And if it really matters, then I've got to do things that
make a difference on an eternal scale, but also in the lives of the people around
me now. And so I think that's what you're getting at.
Like, we had this sense that a lot of the things that we spent so much time,
spent so much money on or so much effort and passion on just didn't matter.
And that verse from Ecclesiastes said that God set eternity in the heart.
Like, that really landed on me, like, at that point. Man, you can wake up tomorrow,
Mark, and your wife can have cancer.
You can wake up tomorrow and find out your son's gone.
You can find out your business that you've worked for three generations is all
gone because of the pandemic or whatever.
What really matters is the impact we leave on other people and the place we land in eternity.
And that consecrate yourself for tomorrow, the Lord will do amazing things among
you. That really is true.
And if it's not true, then Paul says we're like those people who have to be
pitied more than all men.
Yeah, it's true. It's true. And that little scripture that you referenced,
Joshua 3, 5, it is really the...
At the heart, I would say the entire book, All In, is almost just an exegesis
or an extrapolation of that little idea that we want to do amazing things for
God, but that's not our job.
That's the one who does amazing things for us. Our job is consecration.
And one way to define consecration, I think, is going all in and all out for the all in all.
So that's that. You got right to the heart of the issue. you that consecration
is where the battle is won or lost in the mind, in the spirit.
And someone once said it this way, Lee, that the problem with a living sacrifice,
thinking about Romans 12, that we are living sacrifices, is that it can crawl off the altar.
That's right. And so you have to continually consecrate yourself to the Lord.
It really is a day-to-day.
That's right. And from a practical standpoint, what are some ways that people
can kind of reach that clarifying moment and make some change like that where they can go all in?
From your perspective as a pastor, how do you encourage people,
especially people that are successful and have good things going for them,
and God seems to have blessed them and all of that, but they have this sense
that maybe it's not enough, or maybe their life isn't hitting targets that really matter?
How would you encourage our listeners to make some of those changes?
Yeah, what if we did a homework assignment, and whoever's listening right now,
maybe with a spouse or a friend or siblings, here's a conversation question.
What is your definition of success?
And maybe I can share mine, because I think this is a clarifying thing.
But if you don't define success for yourself...
You're probably going to adopt a cultural definition.
And you're going to end up doing, I think, man, how does Dave Ramsey say it?
He says, we buy things we can't afford.
We buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like.
I think that's how he says it. And I think it was Stephen Covey who first said
that we're so busy climbing the ladder of success that we fail to realize it's
leaning against the wrong wall. ball.
A lot of people, you would think just from their lifestyle, the goal is whoever
has the most points at the end of the game wins, but all the toys go back in
the box at the end of the game.
So you have to really discipline yourself. What is success?
And Lee, for me, I feel called to write.
I love to write. I'm absolutely gratified and give God glory when someone's blessed by a book.
And I love to pastor the church that I've had to enjoy pastoring for 28 years
here in DC, but I don't define success by books or by church.
To me, and here's my definition, success is when those who know you best respect you most.
And that's it. It's not complicated. That's my wife and my kids.
And it's no secret that there have been a lot of high profile failings and fallings.
And, of course, I also want to be careful because there are heroes of the kingdom
who are faithfully serving, long obedience in the same direction.
Their integrity is intact at the end of the day.
And sometimes social media will maybe exacerbate the negative stories.
But I want to be famous in my home. And it's hard to be famous in your home
if you aren't home. So then you start establishing boundaries.
And this is where I'm just putting this out there because there are probably
some people listening that their level of success of whatever they do is creating
more opportunities than they can take.
And the danger there is that you're going to be spread so thin that your family
isn't going to get the best of you.
They're going to get the rest of you. And years ago, for example,
I decided I'm only going to do seven overnight speaking trips a year.
I hardly travel. And that means saying no to some opportunities that probably
my 25 or 30 or 35-year-old self would have.
I'll try to plane the next day. But it's learning to establish priorities and
establish boundaries around a definition of success.
And that's right. Yeah. So I hope maybe that creates some healthy conversations.
What does that look like for you? Those who are missing?
That's right. And let's go to the other end of the spectrum,
though, because there's somebody else listening who they haven't felt like their
life was this constant stream of blessing.
They've been through or are going through just devastating stuff.
And they feel like, how can you ask more of me, Martin? I'm already barely hanging
on for God. Like, I'm not even sure what I believe it's been so hard.
Talk to that person for a minute. And where can they find the wherewithal,
first of all, to do more, go all in, when they can barely get out of bed in
the mornings? And what would that look like for them?
Yeah. When you asked that question, Lee, I immediately thought of something
that Lucy Churchill said.
And it's humorous, but it's serious.
He said, if you're going through hell.
Keep going. There is something about keep on keeping on.
So maybe I can just make it personal when we got a first cancer diagnosis for
my wife, and it was a stage one breast cancer, but it's scary.
And until you get that biopsy back and you don't know what you're facing,
and you fight that battle, and then you're four years out, so you're almost
at that five-year earmark and you get a second diagnosis.
And it's a sucker punch because she did everything right.
We followed the protocol. We did everything to the T.
Then you get that second diagnosis. And that's where Charles Spurgeon said something that really helped us.
It's a principle called Well, Kiss the Way that I read a little bit about in
another book called Windy Day.
And I learned to kiss the way that throws me against the rock of the ages.
And so when tough times hit, how are we going to react to that?
And I'll just share one little story because you're going to quickly discover
that my wife has become my hero.
Bro, if she'd walk through these battles and I'd walk with her.
But when she got that first diagnosis, she read a poem that posed a question.
And the question was this, what have you come to teach me?
And when you get a diagnosis like that, it's hard to take a learning posture.
It's hard to have a growth mindset. It's hard to, because you want to deny it
or ignore it or just, you don't really want to deal with it.
But that question has changed our lives.
What have you come to teach me? And I would say, when you're going through the
tough times, then put the good times too.
It's a question you have to always be asking yourself.
What have you come to teach me? And Frederick Deaconess said it this way,
listen to your life and take good notes.
That's right. He also said something about look for the places in your life
where the tears come, and that's where to press in because God's going to show you something there.
There's something to that effect. That's exactly right. Right.
So let's talk for just a minute about prayer and the role that prayer has in
our decision making to go all in and in our ability to do.
Maybe you've written extensively about it. I have another story some other day
I'll tell you about Circle Maker that'll make you laugh.
But talk a little bit about prayer, because I think prayer is pretty essential
in this all in lifestyle.
Yeah, you're catching me the day after our House of Prayer.
Thursday nights, we gather and do something called House of Prayer.
Like last night, we went till midnight.
It was one of those nights where we press in and pray through.
And Lee, you can call me old school, but I really do believe that prayer is
the difference between the best we can do and the best God can do.
Prayer is the difference between us fighting for God and God fighting for us.
I think prayer is how we write history before it happens.
And experience truly answers the prayer, not to keep praying bold prayers.
I think bold prayers honor God, and God honors bold prayers.
I know we probably don't have time to fully extrapolate all the different kinds
of prayer, because I think there's listening prayer.
I think listening is more important than talking when it comes to a conversation
with God. And someone might be saying, Mark, that sounds really esoteric or metaphysical.
When we open the Bible, God opens his mouth. And the Bible wasn't just meant
to be read. It was meant to be prayed.
And so it's almost like the Bible is the conversation starter.
And so there's listening prayer.
I think there's contending prayer, Lee. I think there are moments where you
get on your knees and you contend the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings
that can't be put into words.
That's right. That conversational prayer where you just...
You're commuting somewhere, and instead of turning on talk radio,
you've been so faithful, and you just carry on the conversation about the day.
So lots of different ways to pray.
Prayer, I think, the mantra that I live by is pray like it depends on God and
work like it depends on you.
And if you do those two things, some good things are going to happen.
So many answers to prayer.
I don't know how much time allows for, but if anybody comes to visit, D.C.
Open Invitation is doing by our coffee house, Evan Easer's Coffee House,
right on Capitol Hill, which is a few blocks from Supreme Court.
If you're wondering why would a church open a coffee house?
Because the Holy Spirit plus caffeine was awesome. That's why.
Those two things are pretty new together. So we actually circled the crank house
in prayer for five years, Lee.
And four people offered more money for it than we did, two of them real estate state developers.
We got it. And I want to caveat that every prayer has to be a twofold litmus
test. That's to be in the will of God and for the glory of God.
So this isn't about outlining our agenda to God. It's about God outlining his agenda to us.
But when we get a green light from God, then I think we've got to function out of faith.
Don't let fear dictate your decisions. We get to activate that faith.
And faith is taking the first step before God Now it reveals the second step,
and I think prayer is the key catalyst in that, because that's often how we
did crockings of the Spirit, so to speak.
That's right. I think that's a double-edge that's hard to walk sometimes,
is that dividing line between feeling like we're doing all the work,
and we want to make it all happen,
and we're going to get after it all by ourselves, And then that other idea that
God provides the will and the will to act in according to his good purpose.
What's the scripture here? The
will and the means with which to act in accordance with his good purpose.
So God's doing it. He's providing the nudge. He's providing the tools.
He's providing the opportunities. He just expects us to get after it and operate
it. Yeah. Can I ask you a question right here?
How does prayer play into your practice?
Practice we we've got a few we've got a thoracic surgeon i hope i'm saying that right,
we attend our church and then an orthopedic
surgeon and i'd ask them before how does prayer play into your practice i would
be curious like do you pray with patients do you pray while you're performing
surgery how what does that look like it's interesting it's a it's there's two
phases to that in my career. Really, three, really.
One was before I lost my son, and I was the almost prototypical...
Coat surgeon in control. And I prayed, I believed and I prayed,
but I was the dispenser of the medicine.
I was the doctor and you were the patient. And after I lost Mitch,
I became one of those people that I had been trying to help before.
And I saw my patients now as somebody suffering like I was suffering.
And that changed the way that I prayed for them. It changed the way that I prayed with them.
Mark, to be real honest with you, it was no longer, God, steady Steady my hands
so I can do this great thing that you've trained me to do.
Now it was, help us get through this, Lord, and help this person.
Even if they're not okay from their disease, help me help them find hope anyway.
Even if they're not going to overcome this cancer, help me find the words to
show them that you're still there.
You're not, as you said, I stole this from you. You're not was,
you're I am. Help me see that.
And so that's really changed. And what it did was this remarkable and almost
miraculous thing where all of a sudden my career changed and my purpose changed.
I recognized that I thought I had a specific calling to be a neurosurgeon.
I had a general calling to be a Christian, an image bearer, and I had a specific
calling to do neurosurgery.
And now I realize my specific calling is to help people figure out what's hurting
them and what to do about it. And that's usually not about medicine. Yeah.
Wow. So true. Lee, it sounds like you perform surgery and I preach sermons.
But did you know we pray the same prayer beforehand?
Because I just heard you say it helped me help people.
And, you know, almost before every sermon, I'll give my knee for a moment in
worship, and I'll just say, Lord, help me help people.
And so I'm inspired by that. Thanks. Thanks for sharing that.
I love that you're turning the tables a little bit and interviewing me.
I love it. That's amazing.
We're going to do this all in August, and I'll give you updates on what we hear.
You'll be amazed at some of the emails we get during this month.
And people just make that little shift, and they say, I'm going to press in harder.
I'm going to burn the boats. I'm really going to get after it.
I'm going to consecrate myself.
And you'll be just you'll be blessed, I think, with some of the things that
people will say as the month goes along and in the months after it.
But maybe give us just a pastoral battle cry here, a call to action,
a William Wallace moment.
And just preach us into all in August here for a minute, Mark,
before we run out of time.
Lee, I love it. No pressure, right? A William Wallace moment. My goodness.
I love it. Here's what I think. When Paul is in Athens, he walks into the area.
And you know what I love about him? He can defilatory.
He doesn't stand outside and just boycott. Just so folks know,
the cloth that I'm cut from is, I'm not a holiness by subtraction guy.
Don't do this, don't do that, and you're okay.
Because you can do nothing wrong and still do nothing right.
Goodness is not just the absence of badness.
When I say all in, I'm talking time, talent, treasure.
Pressure i'm saying game on more all of
me for all of you and so i think what inspires
me about that geriatric is come on let's write better books let's produce better
codes let's draft better legislation let's start better businesses let's well
how with the help of the holy spirit and and so we we want to be more known
for what we're for than what we're against angelo said said, and I love this, Lee.
He said, criticize by creating.
Wow. Man, culture is too full of people who criticize by criticizing.
Come on. Can I just say it like it is? Those who can do, those who can,
create stuff like this. Let's try.
Let's make a difference, an eternal difference.
Then it was Jim Elliott, the modern missionary who said, he is no fool who loses
what he cannot keep, to deem what he cannot lose.
That's right. I think only one life will soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last.
If we believe that, we live our lifestyle, maybe prioritize that way.
And now, just so that no one is overwhelmed, here's some good news.
Don't despise the day to small beginnings.
I can't move mountains. I can't move mountains.
But I could have a mustard seed of faith, and then God can move mountains.
If we do little things like they're big things, God will do big things like they're little things.
So this is not, all in is not, honestly, Lee, it's about giving God two mites.
But by the way, did you know, in the Roman economy, this story that Jesus celebrated
the little new day of the two mites,
if memory serves correctly, a mite, it was the tiniest little coin in the Roman
economy, and I think it represented six minutes of time.
It was like the ancient equivalent of in money, but six minutes of time.
So it's like this woman did 12 minutes, but she gave everything.
So it's not about how much you gave, it's about how much you cheat.
And I'll get in our business for a minute. I met a few people who I think were
possessed by a demon, but I've
met a lot more people who I think were possessed by their possessions.
And they don't own things on them and one
of one of our core values is
don't accumulate possession to accumulate experiences and
and so one of the cautionary tales in the
book is about that rich young ruler man lee he could have gone hiking with jesus
he could have gone fishing with jesus he could have been eyewitnessed at every
parable he he spoke every miracle he performed but he couldn't let go.
They held him back. And there's my William Wallace.
I love it. I love it. I would just add, I would add on the neuroscience side,
like David, way back 4,000 years ago, however long, however many thousand years ago David lived,
he prayed a prayer that gets to the heart of,
I think, what God wants from all of us.
And he said, let the words of my mouth, so let the things I say and let the
stuff that I do glorify you, but also the meditation of my heart. He wants your heart.
He wants your thoughts. He wants every depth of every neuron in your brain.
Because if you can get to that level, then you hit that mind of Christ.
And here's the stunning part, Mark. I don't know if anybody's ever said this to you or not.
So now that we know about neuroplasticity, right, now that we know that the
things you think about make structural changes in your brain,
and we know that Jesus never sinned, which means he never sinned with his mind or his body,
that means that everything he did made positive impacts on his brain.
Yes. This is the punchline. Yes. The Bible says we can have the mind of Christ,
and if we can do that, if we can give him all of our minds, then our brains
will start to look more like what his brain must have looked like.
Yeah. and it'll be healthier, and it'll be more like it was designed to be.
That's what all-in looks like to me.
Wow. Wow. I absolutely love that.
I immediately think about that great commitment, love God with all of your heart
and soul and mind, mind, and strength.
And the mind, we are fearfully and willfully made. And when you think about
all the facets of the mind and what the implications of that one statement,
oh, man, we had another hour.
I'd ask you, what does that mean? That's a lot of dimensions.
That's a lot of dimensions. But wow, so good.
It is so good. Thank you for writing all in and all the work that you've done.
But this, I don't know why it's been, I do know why it's been so powerful.
It's just, it's a call to action, right? It's a call to action at a time of
the year when we've already burned through our New Year's resolutions and we've
gained back our beach body that we lost or whatever we did.
We're back in school with the kids and all that stuff. And we're realizing,
hey, this year is kind of playing out like every other year played out.
And maybe my guy's going going to win in the fall, or maybe he's not, or whatever.
It just starts to feel like life is just on this roll downhill.
And all in August is a call to action. It's a time to say, hey,
God says it's time to let the waters part.
You got to get your feet wet first, and it's time to go.
And so Mark Batterson, the man who gave us that call to action,
I can't thank you enough, my friend, for being here and giving us this time today.
It's been amazing. Hey, absolute joy, and the lane of obedience is disobedience.
So I think even doing a timeframe like an all-in August really helps,
and at the end of the day, here's a parting shot.
God isn't gonna say, planned, good and faithful servant, or he isn't even gonna
say, thought or said. It's well done.
And morally, I love the word theology, and theology is so poor.
In fact, just given the fact that it's an election year, just a friendly reminder
that if you filter your biblical theology through your political ideology, it's idolatry.
We've got to do the opposite.
But my point being, I love theology, but I love theologizing even more. It's the verb form.
And it's thinking of everything and everyone theologically. It's treating everyone theologically.
You alluded to this, that you are not an accident.
You are fearfully and wonderfully made.
That's a little tip of the cap to what your mentor is Philip E.
O. Seas. Yeah, I hope that's encouraging.
What a joy to have a conversation with you.
It is. It's amazing. I love that. And it's a real challenge to me.
You just said it's not well planned. And we always say on the self-brain surgery
part of this podcast, when we talk about how to apply all these ideas to your
life from a functional neuroscience standpoint, we say at some point you stop
planning the operation, you stop contemplating and you start operating.
You got to pick that scalpel up and get after it. And so that what you just
said hit me right in the heart, man. It's not well planned.
It's well done. Thank you, Mark Batterson.
God bless you, my friend, and the impressive, incredible work that you're doing.
And we're going to stop by and see you sometimes at the Holy Grounds over there.
I love it. Thanks so much, Lee. God bless.
God bless you. What an incredible conversation.
I'm so grateful that Mark took the time to be with us today.
And I'm very excited to tell you that we have a signed copy of All In.
Mark has signed a book for one lucky listener. We're going to draw the name
48 hours after this episode goes up, and we will send you a book.
There's only three requirements for the free book.
Number one, I need you to be subscribed to the email list.
So if you're not a subscriber yet, if you're not getting the newsletter,
Lee at DrLeeWarren.com, you need to be subscribed to the email list so we can
send you the self-brain surgery letter and help you change your mind and change
your life and some other resources as we go through all in August together.
Two, I need your name, your mailing address, and your zip code in an email to
me, Lee at drleewarren.com.
Name, mailing address, and zip code. If you don't have that information in your
email, we won't be able to send you a book.
And there will be hundreds of replies to this. There'll be hundreds of people
reaching out for this one copy of this book.
So I'm not going to have time to write you back and ask you for your zip code or what your address is.
So don't send me an email that says, hey, I'd love to have a book and not tell
me where you are or how we could get ahold of you. So I need your name,
mailing address, and zip code.
And the It has to be a U.S. address, so we can't send the book outside the United States.
The wonderful people at the National Community Church are sending this book
personally from Mark, so let's don't make him pay international postage.
This is an incredible gift.
He's giving us a signed copy of All In. Listen, we are going All In in August.
2024 is your year. If you've been stuck at the starting line of your own life,
If you keep having the same things happen over and over, it's because what you
don't change, you're choosing to keep.
If you've been stuck, you haven't been able to break through,
maybe it's time to go all in.
We're going to give you all kinds of things to think about and ways that you
can potentially go all in in every area of your life.
Spiritual life, relationship, marriage, family, business, finances,
all the different ways that you could go all in.
We're going to have an episode about all of that stuff as August plays out.
Okay you have opportunities for you to think about
it differently if you're not following me on instagram you're going
to see a lot of posts on instagram at dr
lee warren as the month plays out we're going to talk about specific
tactical ways that we can go all in so follow me on instagram follow mark batterson
on instagram he's probably going to give a shout out to our self-brain surgery
community sometime during the month of august so you need to be following mark
batterson and dr lee warren on instagram check us out i'll put the links in
the show notes i'm so So grateful for your time today, friend.
We have changed our minds and changed our lives. We are on the starting line of All In August.
We're going to get after it in a couple of days. Make sure you buy Mark's book, All In, and read it.
It is a life-changing, powerful book. It's one of my favorite books of all time.
And until recently, I said it was my favorite Mark Batterson book.
Well, I've got some surprising news for you. He has a new book coming out in November.
I had the honor of being able to read an early copy and provide an endorsement
for Mark. His new book is called A Million Little Miracles.
It's available right now everywhere books are sold for pre-order,
and it'll be out in November, and we'll have a whole episode.
Mark's going to come back on the show, and we'll talk about A Million Little
Miracles, but it's right up there with All In.
It might be his best work. I shed some tears. I laughed.
I was in awe and wonder about all the things that God has done,
and if you need A Million Little Miracles in your life, the first way to start
getting them, friend, hear my voice. Look in my eyes.
Go All In. Stop living half your life.
Stop committing part of the way. Stop believing that you can change your mind
and then not actually doing it.
Stop hearing God tell you that if you want to stop being less anxious,
be more grateful. Start doing it, okay?
Start operating instead of contemplating, and you'll start to see some breakthroughs in your life.
You'll start to become healthier and feel better and be happier because you
changed your mind and you changed your life.
The way to get there is to go all in, and the good news is you can start today.